WEST VALLEY CITY, Utah -- A West Valley teen collected thousands of books and plans to donate them to a Navajo Reservation in Arizona, but there's a problem.
Kate De Groote is planning to leave in two days spending her spring break going to different schools delivering the books, but all those books weigh 2,500 pounds. So, she’s having a hard time figuring out how to get them all across state lines.
“I realize a lot of these books are ones I would enjoy reading and I would go to a library to check out. There's nonfiction books about topics that interest me and there's fiction books that I’ve read before and that I love,” Kate said. “You can see the world in a new light. Maybe there's a message within the novel you can apply in your everyday life and maybe it will inspire you to learn about something you may have never thought."
To Kate, a library is not a luxury but a necessity.
“Other kids around the world in other countries, even in our own country, don't have these resources,” Kate said. “Even if they have the same amount of brain power, even if they have the same drive and it makes me want to help them even more.”
That's why for the past year she has collected thousands of books from the community. Storing them here in her basement until she can take them to a Navajo Reservation in Arizona.
“On the reservations, they don't necessarily have adequate funding and they aren't given the support they deserve for places like libraries and facilities,” Kate said.
From the classics to easy reads, out of more than three thousand books, there's something for everyone.
“We did get an outpouring of so many books that we were really grateful for,” Kate said.
Kate knows a good book can easily take you places you've never been, but to get these books to Arizona is a different story.
“The person who was going to let us use his truck, he ended up miscalculating how many books we could fit into it, therefore, we would have been able to fit about half of our books in reality into that truck,” Kate said.
Now they have three options:
- Take only half.
- Have someone volunteer an enclosed car that can carry them
- Rent a car, which can cost $1600 for their trip.
You can donate to the GoFundMe.
All other proceeds will go to benefit the native tribes.
